Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Other Findings from California

-Democrats lead the generic Congressional ballot in California 51-38. Both parties have their base pretty much locked up- 89% of Republicans say they'll vote for their party's nominee and 87% of Democrats say the same for theirs. Independents split toward the GOP but only by a 34-29 margin much smaller than the party's seeing in most states.

I don't know how much the generic ballot tells us about whether any House seats will change hands in California this year, but it does show that Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown are under performing their party's base numbers even if they're still ahead. Boxer's 8 point lead and Brown's 5 point advantage run well behind the generic numbers.

-In the Lieutenant Governor's race Democratic challenger Gavin Newsom has a slight edge over Republican incumbent Abel Maldonado, 39-36. Maldonado's doing what Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina haven't shown the ability to do- win over a significant number of Democrats. Maldonado's getting 17% crossover support. Newsom's winning overall though because he's keeping it tight with independents (just a 35-31 disadvantage) and winning 11% of Republicans, which is more than Boxer or Brown can claim.

-Voters in the state remain pretty evenly divided on gay marriage with 46% saying they think it should be legal and 44% saying illegal. That tightness is pretty consistent with what we saw on the Prop 8 vote in 2008. Despite the tightness of the overall numbers it's pretty clear that there will be strong support for gay marriage with the passage of time- voters under 45 support it by a 57-35 margin.

-Proposition 20, which is intended to reduce the influence of politics in redistricting, is polling way ahead right now. It's important to note though that 41% of voters remain undecided on it. With those who have made up their minds it's ahead 42-16 and enjoys pretty broad bipartisan support- a 32 point margin with Republicans, and a 23 point one with Democrats and independents.

11 comments:

To classify homosexual marriage as "legal" or "illegal" is misleading. No one is advocating making homosexual marriage "illegal". That is a bold-faced lie to even use such language.

No agent of the government is being called upon to suppress private decisions of churches and families and individuals. The question is simply whether taxpayers and employers should be compelled to subsidize and sanction such unions by force of law.

More accurately, the question is whether such unions should be state-supported and whether sanctioning these unions should be mandated by the state, placing binding claims on the freedoms and property rights of taxpayers and employers. Properly viewed, to compel sanctioning of homosexual "marriage" is more tyrannical than to devolve the decision to private institutions or municipalities.

What about the attorney general's race? I heard that that is competitive. Only one poll has come out with it, and the Republican Steve Cooley wins by 2, but it was months ago and the amount of undecideds was gigantic (he was winning 37-35).

just a short question- I was really, really happy to see that you and Kos were starting to release raw data for your joint polls. You've stopped doing so after the first two polls though (DE and MO). Any special reason for that?The people on Kos don't seem to want to respond to my repeated inquiries, so I thought I might have more luck here.

Thanks for polling prop 20. Better hope Nancy Pelosi doesn't see it or she'll chew your head off. While Republicans are mostly non-committal on Prop 20, Pelosi and Berman will do anything to see it stopped. The ironic thing is that I think Democrats will do better with fair redistricting. There are currently 30 districts D +8 or better and 10 districts R +8 or better. The other 13 districts have 10 Republican leaning and 3 Democratic leaning.

The districts are designed so Democrats don't have to worry about any chance of losing, but if they let some of those D +10-15 districts become D +5-9 a number of the Republican leaning districts would become Democratic leaning. In a bad year that could mean the Democrats would only win 28-30 races but in a normal year they'd probably win 35-37. In a good year they'd get over 40.

The Democrats picked up only 1 of the 20 Republican seats despite huge gains elsewhere. They only got that one because of Richard Pombo's ethical problems. The 3rd, 4th, 44th, and 50th would've gone over in the last election if there were just a few more Democrats in those districts. The 26th, 45th, 46th, and 48th would've been possible too.

" ... placing binding claims on the freedoms and property rights of taxpayers and employers."

HUH? How would same-sex marriage affect freedoms or property rights?

Good examples of the failures of civil unions come from other states, where private employers often refuse to extend insurance coverage or pension benefits to a partner. If a state government, or any employer, provides such benefits to the spouse of a two-sex marriage, it should provide such to a same-sex marriage — that is equality. That is what the discussion is about — equal rights for all people.